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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

On September
17ththe American Immigration
Council co-hosted a tweet chat with multicultural children’s book publisher LEE
& LOW BOOKS. We discussed the hows and whys of building diverse libraries
with educators, librarians, school professionals and enthusiastic readers from
across the nation. We learned of new titles, shared free resources to bolster a
classroom library, and importantly talked about ways to resist stereotypes and
to support learning in diverse and non-diverse environments.

As the U.S.
immigrant student population grows, the need to cultivate diverse libraries,
ones that are reflective of all students and various immigration experiences is
ever more prescient. By 2050, one
in three children under the age of 18 will be either an immigrant or the
child of an immigrant.

Our
conversation was rich and we want to share what we learned with you. We’ve
highlighted a few resources below and we encourage you to read the archived
tweet chat for more details.Please
continue to use the hashtag #diverselit
to add your voice to this ongoing conversation and tweet us @ThnkImmigration.

American
Indians in Children's Literature A website by the American Indians in
Children's Literature (AICL) that provides critical perspectives and analysis
of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school
curriculum, popular culture, and society.

Disability in Kid Lit A website dedicated
to discussing the portrayal of disability in middle grade and young adult
literature.

One World: Teens on Writing. Teens on
Culture. A website and project
developed by middle school English teacher Brian Kelley where students host a
podcast discusses diverse reads and share student writing from around the
world. Your student submissions are encouraged.

Reading While White a blog created
by a group of white librarians who strive to confront racism in the field of
children’s and young adult literature

Monday, September 21, 2015

The American Immigration Council is proud to announce the
winners of the 2015-2016 Community Grants Program. The grant program is an
initiative to provide educators and/or community organizers with the resources
they need to implement a successful immigration curriculum or community-based
project.

This year’s winners have developed student-centered
storytelling projects that engage students and families in writing and sharing
immigration stories, past and present, while also demonstrating the important
and varied contributions of immigrants to our country. The awardees are
Eldridge Park School, Lawrenceville, NJ and Charles F. Patton Middle School,
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

According to Eldridge Park English Language Learner
teacher Angeline Sturgis, “my objective in this project is to create a legacy
for family members which clearly documents the motives, decision-making,
action, and often bravery, that led to their arrival in this country, and the
beginning of their lives as new Americans. I have realized that these stories
go untold, especially to children, and believe that they can and should be
recorded in some way. My idea combines the parents' stories with the artwork of
their children for a truly cooperative effort that will be received by the
community with awe and pride.” The intended result of Ms. Sturgis’s grant
project, “Telling the Family Story,” will be a small library of student and
parent authored books that can be shared among school and community
members.She also hopes to host an
author reading.

The focus of “One World,” a project developed by middle
school English Language Arts teacher Brian Kelley, is a student-centered and
student-run classroom podcast modeled after Garrison Keillor’s podcast “The
Writer’s Almanac.” These short podcasts would feature students discussing
writing, books, immigrant family heritage and culture with an aim to exploring
how culture influences youth and writers. Each podcast would also feature
student writing. Eventually, Kelley has plans to see his students spreading the
word about the podcast via social media and encouraging students from all over
to send in their writing and to promote deeper discussions on culture and
immigration. You can follow the project twitter account @Write1Worldand visit the One World website which
welcomes teens to submit essays, poetry, & short stories focused on family,
culture, or heritage.

Kelley has previously collaborated with the American
Immigration Council providing accounts of his experience teaching digital
storytelling on immigrant family heritage with students. To read his teaching
tips, please click here.

Senior Manager of Education Claire Tesh, says, “Our grant
program rewards classroom teachers and community leaders who have innovative
ideas in integrating immigration issues into their teaching. In return, the
American Immigration Council shares their results with the greater public
through lesson plans, multimedia and other projects.”Please join us in celebrating these two
noteworthy projects and stay tuned as we follow their developments in the
classroom.

For over the past
decade, the American Immigration Council has been providing educators with
funding for projects that support its mission of promoting the benefits of
immigrants to our nation. This collaboration with motivated educators across
the nation engages students and communities in thoughtful dialogues centered on
the issue of immigration and multiculturalism.

Please share this post with
fellow educators to spread the word about the great work of these
teachers. To learn more about our
2015-2016 grant programs and resources, including how to apply, please click here. Our next deadline is November 5, 2015. Congratulations
to our deserving and inspirational teachers!

Thursday, September 17, 2015

As
teachers and school professionals, we know this time of year for you is busy
and exciting. From setting up your classrooms, to greeting students and their
families, to finalizing lesson plans and working with colleagues, it can be
overwhelming. We encourage you to read our “Welcoming Immigrant
Students in the Classroom” article published on Edutopia which offers some
streamlined tips and best practices for creating an inclusive, positive
environment for these students.

We
also know that you are a trusted guide for students, and in particular, some of
your more recently immigrated students may share questions and concerns with
you that you may feel like you need more information to address. These concerns
may require extra support perhaps requiring students to seek mental health
counseling and legal assistance.

One
thing to remember is that all
students, regardless of immigration status, are guaranteed by law a right to a
free public education under the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plyer v. Doe. The U.S. Department of Education issued a fact sheet for
schools on educational services for immigrant students and those recently
arrived in the U.S., and together with the Department of Justice, published a
joint guidance letter , fact sheet and Questions and Answers reminding school
districts of their federal obligation to educate all students residing in their
respective district and how to enroll them. A
student’s immigration status isn’t something that teachers can or should
inquire about andschool staff
are prohibited by federal law from taking action that may intimidate or “chill”
immigrant students from attending school.

With
regard to individual legal issues of immigration that a student may choose to
share with you, you can refer them to two helpful websites: www.ailalawyer.com and www.immigrationlawhelp.org to find a reputable
attorney who can address their concerns. If you know a student is seeking
asylum, you can also give them the number to the National Asylum Help Line at
612-746-4674 from 9AM-4PM Monday through Friday. This hotline helps asylum
seekers find free legal services and immigration attorneys near them.

If
you would like more information on this topic, please send us an email with the
subject line “Educator Understandings” at teacher@immcouncil.org and we will send it to you directly.

We
wish you the best as you start your school year – and please do take advantage
of our free lesson plans
and resources
to teach about immigration critically and thoughtfully with all students!

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Juan Felipe
Herrera’s 187
Reasons Mexicans Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007is meant to be
political and personal, provocative and soothing, historical and imaginative. Covering
36 years of Herrera’s creative work, this book is as much a hybrid of genres,
languages, and styles as it is a blend of Mexican-American cultures and identities.
It asks the question of what it means to be Mexican as it also asks what it
means to be American. The physical and cultural borders of ethnic identity
explored in this work offer multiple representations of individual and
collective Mexican-American identities. In particular, the selected poems can
be a wonderful tool for helping provide a historical context for older students
as they examine current immigration issues in the media.

The title of
Herrera’s work is a response to California’s Proposition 187, which was passed in
1994 but was later struck down by the Courts. The law sought to deny
unauthorized immigrants social services, health care and public education. (Of
note, unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for health care under the
Affordable Care Act). The title poem uses Herrera’s characteristic anaphora and
litany to illustrate the often arbitrary and illogical reasons used to prevent
Mexicans from entering the U.S. both physically and culturally with the irony
being that they are a part of American culture and identity already. Herrera
relies on this irony as well as humor, wit, and historical context to make his
statements as the ending excerpted from his “187 Reasons” demonstrates:

Because
we won’t nationalize a State of Immigration Paranoia

Because
the depression of the 30s was our fault

Because
“xenophobia” is a politically correct term

Because
we shoulda learn from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Because
we shoulda listened to the Federal Immigration Laws of 1917,’21, ’24, and ’30

Because
we lack a Nordic/Teutonic approach

Because
Executive Order 9066 of 1942 shudda had us too

Because
Operation Wetback took care of us in the ‘50s

Because
Operation Clean Sweep picked up the loose ends in the ‘70s

Because
one more operation will finish us off anyway

Because
you can’t deport 12 million migrantes in a Greyhound bus

Because
we got his this about walking out of everything

Because
we have a heart that sings rancheras and feet that polka

In other sections,
Herrera delves into the lived experiences of individual Mexicans and Mexican
Americans. In one poem, “Senorita X: Song for the Yellow-Robed Girl in Juarez,”
he commemorates the mothers who have not given up seeking answers to the deaths
of their daughters in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Though the homicide rate has
decreased, at the height of cartel violence in 2010, the city averaged 8.5 killings per day. The killers remain unidentified.
Many of the victims worked in low wage factory positions or were students. The
poem is as much elegy to them as it is a type of historical documentation that
humanizes tragedy and seeks to understand loss. Though it starts abstractly “Yellow-robed
girl/Yellow-book schoolgirl/ Yellow horn-rimmed glasses gazing girl,” the poem
moves to naming some of the individuals lost as seen in the lines “Who’s the
killer Brenda Bernice Delgado?/Who’s the killer Alma Chavira?” This movement
invites the reader to see the women not as statistics of violence, but as individuals.
The poem rescues their lives from anonymity while highlighting the horrific
acts of violence that ended them. Using such a poem with older students
encourages them to look deeper into the individual lives rather than headlines.

While there
are poems of witness, history, and ethnic identity, there are also narratives,
photographs, journal entries, and prose poems that comprise this hybrid
collection. In this layered body of work, Herrera is able to transgress
multiple boundaries: the urban, youthful, and modern with the agricultural and
folkloric traditions. At its best, it makes a reader question the borders of
Mexican, American, and Mexican-American identities, highlighting similarities and
differences, fair and unfair divisions among them, much of which is related to
immigration laws and policies. As the current Poet Laureate, this book is
simply one of his finest.

September
is Hispanic Heritage Month and reading Herrera’s poetry is a perfect way to
celebrate. If you are using with this book with older students, we suggest selecting
one or two poems such as “187 Reasons,” “Senorita X,” or “Mexican Differences
Mexican Similarities.” This poem would also pair well with our lesson on Cesar Chavez.

If
you teach younger students, Herrera has written several children’s books that
introduce students to migrant farmworker experience as well as to writing. Read
our previous blog post reviewing some of his works for
younger readers.

One
of Herrera’s influences was the poet Allen Ginsburg who is known for his long,
list-making poems and was also the son of an immigrant. Ask students to write a
list-making poem of identity as they define in their own words. Have students
make personal and collective, historical and current connections in their poem
like Herrera.

Want to learn more about building a
diverse library?

Join us on
twitter this Thursday, September 17th
from 7:30pm-8:30pm EST for a #diverselit
tweet chat. Together with LEE & LOW BOOKS, the largest multicultural children’s
book publisher in the country, we will be exploring the how and why of building
diverse libraries using hashtag #diverselit.
We hope to have your voice (or
tweets) included in this conversation! Please help us spread the word with this
digital flyer and follow us @ThnkImmigration.